Introduction

This book is different from other books about European accounting, in that its focus is on the national systems for the regulation of financial reporting. Certainly it deals with the rules that govern the form and content of financial statements, but the emphasis is on the process for setting these rules, not on their content: that is, it deals with how the rules are set, not with what the rules are, which is the subject matter of most other books in the field. A very wide concept of ‘rule’ is employed: it includes not only laws and delegated legislation (government decrees and mandatory orders), but also accounting standards, recommendations and opinions, where these are influential. For the purposes of the studies that are described in the later chapters of this book, a financial reporting rule is defined as any precept that influences the behaviour of those who prepare financial statements and, as such, covers a very wide spectrum which ranges from laws which are binding on the preparers of financial statements and which are enforced by a country’s law enforcement agencies, to pronouncements of private bodies and individuals which have only a persuasive influence on the preparers of accounts. Using this approach, the later chapters of this book present a description and analysis of the national system for the regulation of the financial reporting of companies in the following eleven countries, all of whom are members of the European Union (EU): Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.